It’s been really reassuring that HIV is not the death sentence it once was, and that’s a testament to how well the pharmacological industry can meet the challenges that are presented to it. Of course millions of dollars go into R&D for the industry it does every year, but when it realizes outcomes like allowing people with HIV to live on and manage their disease there’s everything to like about that. But while people may not be dying because of HIV, do they need to be concerned about their cardiac health and does HIV cause heart problems? 

A compromised immune system can take away from the vitality of any organ or system in the body, so this is a legitimate question. The same can apply for does HIV cause seizures, or can HIV increase cancer risk. Of course these are all questions your doctor will be best suited to answer, but one thing that everyone will know is that heart health tends to be more precarious as a person gets older. And this tends to be more true for men than it is for women. An unhealthy lifestyle and being overweight is never a good combination when it comes to heart health.  

So looking at does HIV cause heart problems we can tell you that yes, having HIV increases your chances of having heart disease. The medical community is still trying to find a definitive understanding as to why this is, but the belief is that antiretroviral medications most HIV patients are taking have inflammation of the heart tissue (and for other body organs) as a possible side effect. The extent to which this inflammation occurs will be dependent on the person’s individual physiology. 

Be Watchful  

A doctor may recommend certain HIV treatment medications over others if they see the patients having irregular heart function. Inflammation can lead to plaque buildup in the heart, and this is the workings of does HIV cause heart problems. It’s not the swelling of inflammation that is the problem, it’s the fact that there’s more chance of possible arterial blockages. In this sense the risk factor is much the same as a person would have from high cholesterol, so if a person has HIV and also has elevated blood cholesterol this is going to increase their risk.  

The same will apply if the person is already more susceptible to blood clots, as this may pair with plaque buildup to increase the chance of a blockage and restricting blood flow into the heart. It is estimated that people with HIV have a 1.5 to 2x higher chance of having a heart attack during their treatment, and it may also be related to a low white blood cell count. Diminished white blood cell counts is one of the primary results of having HIV, and an insufficient amount of CD4 white blood cells increases the risk of heart attack.  

Concluding this look at does HIV cause heart problems, a patient’s doctor may recommend they also take a statin medication to go along with their antiretroviral as they enter into their HIV management program. Common antiretroviral medications for HIV treatment include Truvada and Atripla, and both are fairly reliable for having any type of negative drug interaction with a statin.